Betfair Review

Founded back in 2000, Betfair is the world’s largest online betting exchange, revolutionising the industry and how customers could place their bets. With the ability to both back and lay, customers could wager in the traditional way of backing a selection or effectively becoming the bookmaker and offering odds to the market. However there was still a huge appetite for a traditional bookmaking service and Betfair duly obliged by opening their own online sportsbook in 2012.

The company has gone from strength to strength boasting millions of customers worldwide and boosting their profile through high-ticket sponsorships of Manchester United, Arsenal and Sevilla over the years.

As well as sports betting, players can also enjoy online and live casino games such as roulette, blackjack & slots as well as their bingo and poker offering. Customers have 24 hour access to all their products across desktop, mobile and tablet.

Getting started with Betfair

As one of the leading bookmakers, we were eager to see what offers were available for us to kickstart our journey with Betfair. A google search for ‘betfair new customer offer’ throws up the following result;

The reason we are showing customers the search engine results is because we couldn’t find this offer as standard on the website. In fact various searches threw up other offers which were richer but not part of the homepage carousel or the promotion specific pages. As a result, this review should deliver huge value to customers looking to unearth the full range of offers for their particular needs. Here you can claim the £100 Free Bets offer at Betfair.

A further check just for ‘betfair’ sporadically displayed the following offer, which isn’t always available when you run the search, and as a dedicated landing page cannot be navigated to on the normal website. Here you can get the alternative offer of Bet £10 on the exchange, Get £30 in Free Bets plus 30 Free Spins at Betfair.

We decided to focus on the £100 offer as this was related entirely to the sportsbook which is the core focus of this review but we will touch upon the ‘Bet £10 Get £30’ offer later.

Once we clicked through we could see what the breakdown of the offer looks like. At first glance, this seemed to be an extremely generous offer and was certainly one of the most competitive we have recently come across.

We kickstarted the process by clicking on the ‘Join Now’ button. This launched us into a one page registration process where Betfair have been transparent about all the information that is required and haven’t broken it down into smaller steps. New customers are required to provide some personal details and set up their new account with a password. This is a straightforward process and takes no more than a couple of minutes.

Betfair takes its role in ensuring responsible gambling seriously and gives customers the chance to set their deposit limits during this setup process. You will have the option to apply limits on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Remember that by hitting the ‘Join Now’ button you agree to their terms and conditions, privacy policy, cookie policy and confirm that you are of a legal age to gamble in the UK – you will not be able to proceed unless you do this.
Once the required fields have been completed, you will immediately be given the chance to make your first deposit.

Betfair Deposit Options & Terms

Customers can choose to deposit funds by using their debit cards or select the ‘alternative methods’ to view other options.

After exploring each of these, we settled on making our first deposit via a debit card payment. Below we have provided an outline of the minimum and maximum deposit amounts for each method and the estimated processing time.

Please be aware that in the United Kingdom, regulations do not allow customers to use a credit card to make deposits for gambling any more.
After selecting your chosen payment method, simply enter the amount you wish to deposit and confirm your payment details. Once you have submitted your details you should get a confirmation message confirming everything has gone through. Simply press the ‘Start Betting’ button to make your first wager.

Betfair will not charge for these transactions although it should be noted that your payment provider may. Some card companies may regard betting transactions as “cash” and can attach a fixed and/or interest charge from the date of payment so you should check just to be sure. Banks and e-wallet providers may also charge a currency exchange commission if you’re depositing in a different currency, or a transfer commission. Again, please check the terms with your provider as this will not be reimbursed in any way by Betfair. Once your details are verified the processing of the deposit is pretty instant with the majority of payment methods.

In most cases, Betfair’s verification is fully automated but there may be times they require additional documentation to confirm any new customers are who they say they are and satisfy all eligibility criteria. They must be able to verify your full name, date of birth and address before your first deposit can be made.

Betfair have comprehensively outlined which documents that can be used. Please review the list below.

How to submit your documents:

• Through “Message us” on Contact us section here
• Secure uploader: Once logged into your Betfair account, select “My account” -> “My details”-> “Verification” and upload a photo or a scan of your documents

We were happy that no further documentation was required for us to proceed as we were verified immediately and went through to the homepage with our updated balance.

Betfair Withdrawal Options & Terms

For withdrawals, various options remain from when you deposited, but the timeframe for funds to hit your account can vary. For a comprehensive overview, please review the table below;

There does not seem to be a stringent minimum withdrawal threshold as we were able to make a request for 1p! We found no mention of maximum withdrawal amounts although for large payments there may be additional security and verification required before it is approved. This makes Betfair one of the most flexible providers when it comes to minimum and maximum amounts for both depositing and withdrawing.
Please be aware that when looking to make a withdrawal, any bonuses credited to your account must have satisfied all wagering requirements and qualification criteria before they can be released as cash. There may be times you feel the balance you can withdraw and that which is showing on your account are different and in many cases will be down to this reason.

Betfair Sportsbook Bonus Offer

All eligible players who have signed up to Betfair can take advantage of their new customer bonus offer when depositing for the first time. The headline offer we are reviewing is currently ‘Get Up To £100 In Free Bets’.

In order to claim this offer, you must go through the following steps :

1. Place 5 x £10 (or more) single bets on the Sportsbook each at min odds 1/2 (1.5).
2. After your 5 qualifying bets have been settled, you will receive a £20 free bet.
3. The process can be repeated up to 5 times. The max bonus available is 100 (5 x £20 free bets)
4. Free bets will be awarded within 24 hours of you completing the qualifying requirement.

Bonus Terms & Conditions

As well as the main qualifying criteria listed above, there are some additional terms to be aware of in order to be eligible to claim the new customer offer.

We have summarised these below.

• You can stake more than £10 but it will only count as one qualifying bet.
• Bets placed and settled within the first 30 days of account opening qualify.
• Excludes ‘same market’ bets placed on the Exchange.
• Cashed Out and Voided bets do not qualify.
• Bets placed using free bets as the stake (in full or in part) will not qualify.
• Only deposits made using Credit/Debit Cards or ApplePay will qualify.
• Only one bet per event will qualify.
• Multiple bets are excluded and any single bets in multiple bets are also excluded (e.g Lucky 15).
• Free bets are valid for 30 days.

Additional Bonuses

Betfair have been generous in giving extra bonuses and customers can access these by going to the ‘Promotions’ link towards the top of the homepage. We also promised to touch upon their other headline offer and will give an overview of this first.

This is an excellent offer if customers want to get playing across more of Betfair’s products. It is primarily aimed at getting players onto the exchange as this is where you will get £20 free after your initial £10 deposit. But you can have a free punt on the ACCA market on sportsbook as well as try your hand at the casino by getting 30 free spins.

There doesn’t seem to be an end to Betfair’s generosity as the homepage is littered with offers including a daily ACCA free bet (bet £10 on ACCA’s and get £5 Free), odds boosts, additional payout on horse racing places and this is all before you’ve navigated to the promotions page.

Customers can also benefit from a refer a friend scheme where Betfair will reward you with £10 in cash for each referral up to a maximum of 5.

You can stay up to date with any new offers by regularly checking Betfair’s bonus and promotions page.

Betfair Sportsbook

Our initial perception of the sportsbook was that it was very well laid out and had a real buzz and energy upon arrival. There were lots of sports, markets and offers but unlike other bookmakers, these don’t overwhelm the senses as the images help break up the sections. Customers can find the headline offers in the rotating carousel at the top with quick links and in-play markets visible underneath. The navigational tabs at the top of the page make it easy to identify your sport of choice and proceed to placing a bet.

The depth of sporting markets was also good as we counted over 25 at the time of this review, ranging from Football, Cricket, Tennis, Golf and Horse Racing through to international sports such as American Football, Aussie Rules, Baseball and Basketball. Many leading sites now have odds available for political and novelty markets and we found Betfair to be no different. There was a market for political betting as well as ‘current affairs’ tab which offered odds on the next Pope, Nobel Prize winner and Time Person of the Year!

Betting & In-Play Markets

After exploring the site, we thought we would take a closer look at the depth of markets on an upcoming football match and assess how easy it was to place a wager.

We worked our way to the football homepage where all the latest in-play fixtures were shown alongside a carousel of the top European leagues

We selected the UK Football option and arrived at a set of fixtures that were aesthetically pleasing on the eye, allowing us to easily identify our game of choice. All those that were due to be either shown on TV or available for live streaming onsite were clearly marked and we drilled into the upcoming encounter between Manchester City and Arsenal.

We were certainly impressed with the visuals and layout as all those that were eligible for cash-outs were clearly labelled and the area above the markets contained in-depth stats and data relating to both teams. This included their form coming into the game based on their last five results, player stats and a comprehensive match preview. These tools will help customers make more informed decisions around their betting and enhances the onsite experience as everything is readily available and doesn’t require players to have multiple tabs open to collate the same information.

We could see a huge range of available markets including outright winner, goalscorers, cards and corners amongst others. We decided to bet on a Manchester City win and for there to be over 2.5 goals. This brought up a bet slip to the right hand side which seamlessly populated both the singles markets as well as offering us accumulated odds on our selections. Frustratingly, the bet slip started infringing on the markets we were perusing and we needed to press the ‘betslip’ button towards the top right to collapse the widget.

Once the odds were compiled, it allowed us to play around with the stakes and see the potential winnings of each selection and scenario. Once the bet was placed, the confirmation was immediate with all the details laid out for final review. A separate section came up towards the left side giving us the option to partially or fully cashing out the bet.

We certainly found this process simple and intuitive and had no qualms about finding our markets and making the wager. Many rival operators don’t allow accumulators to be created within the same ticket or offer immediate cash-out options. This functionality and smoothness of the process made it an excellent experience on site.

Live Streaming

Betfair offers its customers the ability to view many events via a live stream. Any in-play event which is available is marked with a play icon next to the market selections.

Any upcoming events which will have a live stream available are also clearly marked with a ‘Watch Live’ tag as seen below.

We looked to see how a live stream impacted the betting experience and found it blended in nicely with the current interface. You can continue browsing the markets and see updated odds whilst viewing the action towards the left. There is also an option to expand the screen into a pop-up and move it around the screen which makes betting more fluid.

For a view on all the upcoming events that will be shown live on Betfair, go to their dedicated live video section.

Loyalty & VIP Programs

Betfair does not operate a dedicated loyalty program on its sportsbook but is one of the leading operators in offering new and existing customer bonuses. These will usually be communicated in your account ‘My Account’ section and can also be visible in the top right of the screen.
Those playing on the betting exchange do benefit from Betfair Points, a program which reduces the commission paid on winning bets based on the amount of points accumulated.

Safety & Security

Betfair takes the security of all its members very seriously and uses state-of-the-art technology to keep customers safe.
The site currently uses a minimum 128-bit SSL encryption. SSL is a well known standard which encrypts data before it leaves your computer in a way that can only be decrypted by Betfair’s servers. If you have a relatively new browser like Chrome, Firefox or Opera, then this encryption is “military grade” 256-bit AES.

Additionally, Betfair is proud to be ISO27001 certified, the de-facto global standard for Information Security Management. They state ‘ISO27001 certification demonstrates that we are serious about delivering premium quality security, that we are willing to undergo regular independent audit and that we are committed to reviewing and maintaining our security features in the future.’

Betfair further deploys numerous technologies to help protect our customers from attackers on the Internet. The servers in their data centres are physically secured with biometrics, guards and cameras. Their systems are also separated with firewalls, intrusion detection systems and traffic analysis solutions that examine every byte of data as it enters and moves around their data centres.

Given these measures, we certainly feel comfortable using the Betfair platform where all personal and financial information is safe and kept confidential.

Customer Service

Betfair have provided both phone and email addresses for customers to use if they need to reach out regarding any issues.

Restricted Countries

Betfair has an extensive list of restricted countries and ensures it does not accept accounts from those territories. Here is a excerpt of the banned countries.

• Afghanistan
• Algeria
• American Samoa
• Angola
• Austria
• Brunei Darussalam
• China
• France (including French Territories)
• Guam
• Guyana
• Hong Kong
• Iraq
• Islamic Republic of Iran
• Japan
• Korea
• Kuwait
• Lao People’s Democratic Republic
• Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
• Martinique
• Myanmar
• Namibia
• Northern Mariana Islands
• Papua New Guinea
• Puerto Rico
• Singapore
• South Africa
• Sudan
• The Syrian Arab Republic
• Turkey
• Uganda
• USA (excluding New Jersey)
• Virgin Islands (USA)
• Yemen
• Zimbabwe